I’m currently sitting at my outside table enjoying the cool morning air and my coffee, and I am trying to come up with ideas to write about. Despite setting up a blog, paying money for a domain and hosting, coming up with a bunch of ideas, I find myself resisting the process of actually committing to writing something that will be posted eventually. I’m not sure why, but it is hard to motivate myself into doing something that I thought I wanted to do. Maybe it’s a fear of failure and criticism. Maybe it’s laziness. Maybe it’s the fact that by committing to writing and becoming a “writer” I am challenging my identity, which up to this point has been “non-writer.” 

I think it is probably a mixture of all of these things. I am nervous about facing criticism. I know for a fact I am lazy. If I decide to adopt this moniker of “writer” into my social media bios that SAYS something about me. Now, I AM that thing. There’s an allure to the blank slate persona and the possibilities that it holds. But that’s an illusion. We lie to ourselves all the time about how “tomorrow will be the day I make a choice. Tomorrow is when I will commit to change.” But tomorrow never comes, you only have today.

So I am sitting here, glancing over my shoulder at the Javelina (who I have named Julius) that is creeping ever closer, and I am “forcing” myself to write. Not because I have anything momentous or groundbreaking to write about, but because if you want something in life you have to start moving towards it. Ask any of the kids I used to work with and they will tell you my favorite way to explain life is with gym metaphors. It’s not my fault that it happens to be the perfect vehicle to explain how to make any significant change in your life. 

The Gym Metaphor

Let me clarify. When is the hardest point in a gym-goer’s career of working out? The very first time they go into the gym. They don’t know what to do, they see people who are stronger, faster, more agile than them, and they feel entirely out of place. Beyond that, after they finish their first workout they wake up sore and exhausted the next day. They ask themselves; “I have to do this for the rest of my life?” It’s hard to start a gym habit, as any person who has uttered the words “New Years Resolution” will tell you. 

This is a lot like making any significant change in life. At first you have no idea what you’re doing. You see people out in the same field who have been doing it for years and have found success. The first few times you try something new it feels awkward and unnatural, and you question whether or not you were meant to be here in the first place. I’ve felt that before, and I’m certainly feeling it now with this new endeavor. Changing jobs, trying a new hobby or activity, trying to create a new habit, the beginning process is always a bit painful and awkward. 

Your Brain Seeks Comfort

Our brains are wired to keep us fixated on what works. This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. If you learned that the blue berries on that bush are tasty and don’t kill you, your brain will trust those blue berries going forward. Let’s imagine you come across a bush of red berries, and have seen your tribemates die eating strange foods before. You’re less likely to trust those new berries when you know the blue ones are safe. Your brain keeps you alive by keeping you doing what you know. It resists changes, because back then changes killed people. It’s a useful tool to keep us upright. However, this same mechanism is now working against us in modern times by resisting change, even if it would be good for us. 

No one is denying that regular exercise and healthy eating would be good things for all of us to do, but changing our habits to incorporate these things is uncomfortable. Your brain enjoys the comfort of being a dorito-hoovering slob and does not want to change that. So it throws up that resistance to change and makes it incredibly uncomfortable to try the new thing. It starts whispering “you aren’t good enough” and “maybe this isn’t for you” over and over, trying to pull you off the path.

But just like pushing past those first few weeks of uncomfortability, soreness, tiredness, and pain in the gym, anything we try to pursue will require us to go through a pain point. A period of time where our brains resist change and try to force us back to comfortability. There is a lot of misinformation regarding how to get past this pain point. It seems that common wisdom suggests the best way to change is to be inspired. A video online with a triumphant soundtrack and a voiceover of some influential figure talking about “getting up” and “keep going.” Through inspiration we find motivation and begin to take action. But after a few weeks that motivation fades and the voices and doubts creep in, pulling us back to comfortability. 

Resisting the Temptation of Comfort

There are a number of ways to counteract this doubt defense mechanism. One method is to use a practice called “Kaizen,” or “continuous improvement.” The basic idea is that instead of trying to make drastic and sweeping changes to our routines and habits we start small, impossibly small, and build the habit slowly over time. This allows us to bypass the defense mechanisms to change that our brain deploys against us. A whole pile of articles could be written on the concept of Kaizen, but for now understand it as a method to enact change that is different from the standard, culturally accepted way of workout montages.

So what does any of this have to do with my writing? This blog acts as a journal for me to show how I make changes to my life, work on myself, and improve things. My goal is to document what I am trying to accomplish and the process I use to accomplish it. One of my objectives is to post to this blog regularly, but plagued with doubts and insecurities I have been putting it off in favor of other things. Even now part of my brain is telling me to delete this article and stop writing. But just like someone who sits around thinking about wanting to get in shape never does, I cannot accomplish anything by doing nothing. If you want to get stronger, you have to lift weights. If you want to run faster, you have to run.  

Willpower and Discipline

The reason motivation fails us is because it does not take into account time. Motivation feels good, but it ignores the time it takes to see progress. Two weeks of lifting weights does not turn you into an Adonis, two weeks of running does not have you completing marathons. When you do not see the results you want shortly after starting the illusion of motivation fades. Think of motivation as a resource that you have a limited amount of. If you happen to get a large amount of it from somewhere, harness it and use it, but do not fool yourself into thinking the feeling will last. You will fall back into your old habits if you trust the motivation to continue propelling you forward. Instead, rely on discipline and habit to keep you moving. 

I am not feeling particularly motivated to write, but I know how to use discipline and willpower to take action. The mistake most make when using discipline is that they mistake it for willpower. Willpower is a resource that you apply consciously to overcome specific barriers in your mind. You walk down the cookie aisle at the grocery store and feel that subconscious urge to grab a box and put it in your cart, but force yourself to walk away because you’re trying to eat healthier. That’s willpower, a single instance of control.

 Discipline is the applied habit of directing willpower situationally over time.

 Let me provide an example. When I first began lifting seriously I would have days where I wanted to just sit around doing nothing and skip the gym. “You can miss one day, it’s no big deal” my brain would tell me trying to keep me comfortable. If I was relying on motivation in these early stages I would have given up here.

Instead, I employed situational use of willpower. Most people would make a herculean effort of willpower to force themselves into the gym and through their workout. I knew that willpower was a finite resource so I used it only in small bursts. When my brain began putting up hurdles to stop me and keep me comfortable I would take notice and consciously object. “We don’t have to go on Wednesday if we don’t feel like it, but we’re going today.” Instead of trying to force my brain to stop putting up hurdles I used just enough willpower to get myself INTO the gym. That was it, if I got inside the gym I considered it a success. 

This may seem silly, but by selectively using my willpower to sidestep the defense mechanism of my brain I saved my willpower as a resource. “Just do today” became a mantra for me in days where I struggled. I allowed myself to consider skipping the following workout, but not the one that I had to do right then. The trick is that when the next workout rolled around, I just did it again.

I had serious goals for my fitness, but instead of trying to picture the end result, I embraced the process and used willpower to overcome resistance. My mindset shifted to one that was focused on trusting the process to bring me results in time. Instead of thinking about what the end goal was, comparing myself to that end goal, and then giving up because I thought about the vast amount of time it would take to get that goal my focus became about the repetition. 

I knew that if I was taking the steps required to reach my goal; eating enough protein and calories, getting good sleep, and hitting the gym consistently, I would get there eventually. My goal stopped being about getting to a specific strength or physique, it was just “go to the gym and eat right.” I believe that is what discipline is. Employing willpower when needed to keep yourself engaged in the process. Motivation strives towards goals, discipline embraces the process. Willpower is the tool that nudges you back on track when you need it, but habit is what keeps you going.

Trust the Process

Eventually, the voice in my head that used to tell me to skip workouts began telling me to do more. I would feel guilty if I did only what was required. I began adding reps to the ends of sets or running a bit farther or faster than what was necessary. If I didn’t push myself the voice would start nagging me. “You aren’t doing enough.” “You won’t achieve your goals if you don’t push yourself.” “Don’t just do enough, you can do more.” The voice was starting to work for me rather than against me. 

While the above example pertains to weight training and running, I am using the same tactic for writing. You don’t increase your squat weight if you don’t train squats. The repeated practice of the movement (combined with supporting practices like good diet and sleep) is what yields results. If I want to become good at writing I have to write. If I want it to become a habit I have to do my reps. Adopting a mindset of “doing your reps” just for today is how you begin to build your discipline.

 Using discipline to change something in your life leads to forming new habits. If you want to make a change to your life, begin by taking small enough steps that you only need to employ minimal willpower if you encounter resistance. If you feel like you’re pushing a boulder up a hill and the resistance is insurmountable you are doing too much. Trust the process, dial back your efforts to a manageable level that you can consciously do, and be patient. The strength and skill will come with time. I began lifting seriously in October of 2018. By May of 2019, 7 months later, I had doubled the working weight of all of my lifts, increasing only 5 pounds per week. Small, gradual steps and the discipline to focus on engaging in the process rather than trying to reach some arbitrary end goal yielded everything I wanted anyways. Trust the process, and do your reps.